Yesterday, I panned Continentals OnePass frequent flier program as having just terrible availability.    That said, there are some people who are invested in the program who might need some more points just because the standard awards are not available and they have to use double the miles all of the time.   I am looking at you Newark, Cleveland, and Houston area travelers.

45,000 Continental Miles Real Quick

All the detail are at the One Mile At A Time Blog, but you need to register for promotion, get the Chase credit card, and spend $1,000 dollars between now and the end of November.    The author advises that you open up a Chase checking or savings account as well for a 5,000 mile bonus each.    With 50,000 miles, you can actually get a single domestic ticket in coach, who ho!

New Amex Promotion

Over at the View From The Wing blog, there are details about a new American Express Membership Rewards promotion.     There is a new Gold Rewards Card with the annual fee waived the first year.    With that card,  you get 15,000 Membership Rewards points for your first $1,000 in spend, plus an additional 15,000 after you spend $30,000 in a calendar year.     The obvious advice is to wait until late December before applying for this card, and only start using it at the beginning of the year, so as to maximize you chances of reaching the $30,000 annual spend.   If you do that, you will reach 60,000 Membership Rewards points by the end of the year.

Clearly this is for people who would usually spend that amount on their credit cards anyways.    The last thing that I would recommend is that anyone gets a card like this if for any reason they might be encouraged to spend more than normal.

The Usual Reward Card Warnings

It should go without saying that these cards, like any reward cards, are only for people who always pay their balance in full, and never pay interest.    It is for that reason that I do not even mention the interest rate as it should be irrelevant.

My Plan

I think I might recommend the Continental promotion to the family member that is already invested in the OnePass program.    $1,000 spend is not much for an additional 45,000 that will make her orphaned miles a little more usable.     I am on the fence regarding the Amex deal.    On one hand, 60,000 Membership Rewards points are nice, I am just not sure I will be able to reach the 15,000 bonus for $30,000 annual spend.     To have any chance, I would have to stop using my beloved Starwood Amex.    A quick look through the Membership Reward site does show some attractive awards, but not the choices and great redemption rates you find with Starwood Hotels and their airline partners.    Luckily, I have some time to think about it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 20:00 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.